News Story

Steam launch Early Access for playable games in development

Valve has noticed people rather like paying for early access to games that are still in development and so decided to make it a thing. Early Access is now a category under Games - just beneath Free to Play.

Kicking this new category to life are the likes of Arma 3, Drunken Robot Pornography, Gnomoria, Kinetic Void, Prison Architect and others. It's almost like Steam is taking note of what we want or something.

There are official bug reporting discussions supported, which makes tons of sense considering these are betas or even alphas. Steam has dedicated a whole section to this.

"Get immediate access to games that are being developed with the community's involvement. These are games that evolve as you play them, as you give feedback, and as the developers update and add content," blurbs Valve.

"We like to think of games and game development as services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community. There have been a number of prominent titles that have embraced this model of development recently and found a lot of value in the process. We like to support and encourage developers who want to ship early, involve customers, and build lasting relationships that help everyone make better games."

They also explain that this is not like pre-purchasing a title on Steam because through Early Access you get immediate access to playable builds of the game. Valve wants more studios to get interested in their Early Access program like those who have been Greenlit. Currently 12 titles are in the list: